Born in Brunico, Gerhard Wieser has led the Castel Fine Dining restaurant in Tirolo since 2001, keeping its two Michelin stars every year since 2010 with a French-based technique that showcases the produce of the Alps.
Gerhard Wieser (27 May 1968) grew up in Rasun, Val d’Anterselva. After hotel school in Brunico he cooked in Germany, Singapore and Switzerland, earning the German Meisterbrief in 1993, the youngest South-Tyrolean to do so. In 1994 he joined the restaurant of Hotel Castel in Tirolo and became head chef in 2001, maintaining the two-star rating first won in 2010 along with 19/20 points and 5 Toques from Gault & Millau.
His cuisine blends classical French precision with Alpine ingredients: Anjou pigeon with coffee, hazelnut and fermented carrot; Black Forest venison tartare with mountain herbs; turbot turban with black truffle and mirror-finish jus. The 2024 Michelin Guide praised his “technical accuracy and depth of flavour”; the dining room’s 180-degree views over Val Venosta frame an eight-course seasonal tasting menu paired with South-Tyrolean wines.
With Heinrich Gasteiger and Helmut Bachmann he has authored more than 70 volumes in the series So kocht Südtirol, considered standard references on modern South-Tyrolean cooking.
To mark his 30th anniversary at Castel, the hotel hosted a 2023 Dine & Wine Festival featuring guest chefs Martin Dalsass and Joachim Wissler. Wieser now leads a brigade of 25, oversees a 700-label cellar and teaches masterclasses at the in-house Castel Cooking School, sharing his quest for balance between territory and classical technique.
